Our Bodies, Ourselves: Time to Fight Back Again

Today the Supreme Court really did it, banned the right of women to control their bodies and the rights of women and men to determine their reproductive futures. The authoritarian right (read GOP) has now fully invaded our bedrooms. Are we going to finally fight back?

The Supreme Court is fully weaponized against us, with a rapist, a doll-eyed cultist, and a zealot who's married to a woman who tried to overthrow our democracy in the wake of Trump's electoral defeat joining with the three other right-wing extremists to overturn Roe v. Wade. And yet President Biden and other clueless Democratic leaders cation us against venting our outrage outside the Supreme Court or the justices' homes. Why shouldn't we invade their sanctuaries if they use their power to invade ours?

While we the people -- the American majority -- organize to overthrow these fanatics, we need to resist in the states that are now free to completely outlaw abortion (about half of the country). The Jane Collective -- which was founded by Heather Booth in Chicago in the late 1960s before Roe v. Wade -- demonstrated how to perform abortions for desperate women safely, if illegally.

For inspiration, you can read all about the Jane Collective in By the Light of Burning Dreams --- the book written by my sister Margaret and me, which is now in paperback. (There's also a timely HBO documentary about Jane.)

The women of Jane were willing to sacrifice their own comfortable lives and even go to prison for long stretches so that the rest of us could control our own bodies, not the state. If you're not willing to fight for that basic right, what are willing to fight for?